


Drinking Habits

by situationnormal



Series: Delicate [6]
Category: K-pop, Shinhwa
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 19:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2201007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/situationnormal/pseuds/situationnormal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dongwan has to retrieve Eric from a bar one night after a fight with Hyesung. Loosely inspired by Dongwan talking about Eric's drinking habits on Shinhwa Broadcast. (Mostly Ricsyung, with some Ricwan if you squint.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drinking Habits

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally published on my writing LJ, so if you've seen it somewhere else, it was (hopefully) there.

Because he lived furthest away, Dongwan was the Shinhwa member least often on babysitting duty. If Minwoo got drunk, for example, Eric and Hyesung lived unfortunately close and were able to swing by the club and pick him up with relative ease. Dongwan, on the other hand, had found a place far enough away to exempt him from that sort of thing.

So, when Eric called a little before 3 AM, Dongwan’s mind immediately jumped to death, dismemberment, or grievous illness. Eric’s slurred, slightly cute, “Wannie~~” when he answered the call filled him with simultaneous relief and anger.

“Eric, it’s 3 AM,” he said, trying to keep his voice flat.

“Wannie, I need you,” Eric said, hardly audible over the sound of music in the background.

“If you’re drunk, call Minwoo or Hyesung, they live closer.”

“Minwoo left me, I need youuuu,” Eric whined.

“Call Hyesung, then,” Dongwan said.

“Hyesung-ie is a meanie!”

Dongwan sighed, the relief he’d felt at the beginning of the call was beginning to be replaced with annoyance. He had barely slept the day before, with schedules into the night, and driving out to whichever bar Eric was in would ruin his plans for making up for it on his day off. But he knew the chances of reaching one of the other members, or any of Eric’s friends, were slim under the circumstances.

"All right, then, text me the address. Or have someone do it for you,” Dongwan said. He sighed again as he ended the call.

* * *

Thirty minutes later, fully dressed but looking much rougher than he normally would like when walking into a crowded bar, Dongwan reached Eric’s location. It was surprisingly close to his apartment, which made him feel slightly better about being the friend Eric had called. As he began to look around for a parking space, he saw Eric, leaning against a pole outside of the entrance. He had a hat pulled down low, covering his face, but it was unmistakably him. Dongwan sighed for the fortieth time that night and pulled his car as close to the curb as possible and rolled the window down.

“Hurry and get in before someone recognizes you,” he said. He could see Eric’s wide grin from under the brim of the hat as he lunged toward the door handle.

“Wan-ah! You came,” he said, throwing himself into the passenger seat.

“I said I would, didn’t I? What are you doing standing on the side of the road? What if someone saw you?” Dongwan asked, impatiently waiting for Eric to close the door and put on his seatbelt.

“I’m in disguise,” Eric said, still grinning, and adjusting his hat. It was almost enough to make the other man smile, but he stopped himself, choosing instead to remain stern.

“You shouldn’t be out drinking alone in the middle of the night, you know, especially this far away from your apartment. Now I have to take you all the way out there,” Dongwan griped, putting the car into drive after assuring himself that Eric’s seatbelt was safely buckled.

“Noooo. I don’t want to go home. I want to go to your house,” Eric pouted, pulling on the sleeve of Dongwan’s jacket.

“Why go to my house? You should sleep at your own place.” Dongwan stopped at a red light and turned in his seat to frown at Eric. It wasn’t a particularly bad idea, really. If Eric crashed in the guest room he could call his manager to pick him up the next day, and Dongwan could get an hour or more of extra sleep and not have to drive all the way out there.

“I forgot the door’s passcode,” Eric explained. Just when Dongwan started to give Eric credit, he got pissed off again.

“How can you forget the passcode when you’ve had the same one your whole adult life?” he asked, switching into the appropriate lane to head back to his own apartment, despite his scolding.

“I changed it yesterday,” Eric said. He grinned again and continued to pull on Dongwan’s sleeve, apparently happy that Dongwan had agreed to take him to his place so easily.

Dongwan was unable to come up with a response to that, deciding he didn’t really need or want to know the reasons behind Eric’s constantly strange behavior.

* * *

“We’re hooooome,” Eric sang, stumbling into Dongwan’s apartment and nearly breaking his own neck as well as Goguma’s in the process. Dongwan was suddenly reminded of the last time he’d had to take a drunken Eric back to his place. That had ended with Eric naked on his floor, holding his legs in the air and complaining of a broken toe. He still had flashbacks sometimes thinking about Eric and alcohol in combination.

“I’m home; you’re in someone else’s,” Dongwan muttered, sidestepping his patient dog and wasted leader.

“Ya, your home is my home and my home is your home and all that,” Eric said, before making a beeline for the couch. Before Dongwan could close and lock the door, Eric’s jacket and shirt were already thrown haphazardly over the coffee table. The hat, on the other hand, was placed delicately on Goguma’s head before she shook it off, bewildered, and ran into Dongwan’s bedroom.

“Why are you taking your clothes off in someone else’s living room?” Dongwan asked, ignoring Eric’s previous sharing-is-caring comments. He pulled off his own jacket, throwing it on top of Eric’s. Eric smiled up at him from the couch, blinking lazily.

“Thank you for saving me, Wan-ah. Minwoo abandoned me, Junjin and Andy ignored my calls…” he trailed off, unbuttoning his pants and throwing them on top of the pile on the table.

“Why were you drinking so far away from your own place, anyway? Don’t you have a bar you usually go to?”

‘So much for not asking questions,’ Dongwan thought, placing a pillow on Eric’s nearly naked lap.

“I didn’t want to drink there tonight. Minwoo took me to that place and said you two drink there sometimes, but then he got a better offer and abandoned me,” Eric said, pouting. He grabbed the pillow, throwing it from his lap and stretching his legs across the couch.

“Why didn’t you want to drink there tonight?” Dongwan asked, realizing that trying to keep Eric covered was fighting a losing battle. At least he was wearing underwear and he had his legs together. That was a major improvement on last time.

Eric either didn’t hear the question, or chose to ignore it, as he began to half-sing, half-rap under his breath and roll over. After a few seconds, he cracked his eyes open, patting the couch invitingly. Dongwan sat down, half-angry at himself for letting Eric invite him to sit on his own furniture.

“Why didn’t you drink at your usual place, Eric? And why did you change your passcode?” Dongwan asked, trying to be more patient, even though Eric’s newly bare feet were gaining purchase on his thighs.

“Hyesung-ie knows my old passcode, and where I usually drink, but he’s a meanie,” Eric said. He rolled over, burying his face in the couch cushion and his heels even more sharply into Dongwan’s thighs.

“Ouch. Dammit, Eric,” Dongwan said. He regretted losing his temper immediately, though, as he noticed Eric’s trembling bottom lip. “Eric, come on,” he said. Eric rubbed furiously at his right eye with the heel of his hand, lip still trembling. “What did you two fight about this time?” Dongwan asked. Eric continued to turn away, dangerously close to crying openly—very out of character—and making Dongwan decidedly uncomfortable.

“He’s a meanie,” Eric repeated. Dongwan patted the older man’s thigh awkwardly, forgetting for a moment that it was completely bare.

“Let me make you some coffee so you can sober up and tell me about it,” Dongwan suggested. He rose before Eric could protest, and began to fish out his phone before he even reached the kitchen. Scrolling through his contacts furiously, taking out his frustrations on his poor touch screen, he began to make a pot of coffee. Hyesung answered on the fourth ring.

* * *

“Dongwan? What’s wrong?” Hyesung’s voice was more alert than expected, which was at least a bit gratifying.

“That’s what I want to know, Hyesung. Eric is on my couch, mostly naked, whining about you being a meanie.”

“Ya! Don’t scare me like that. Calling at this time of night. I thought someone was dead,” Hyesung said.

“Someone’s going to be if you don’t fill me in,” Dongwan responded, closing the top on the coffee maker with a loud snap.

“Has he been with you all night?”

“I’m the one asking the questions here! Am I talking to myself? You two are really amazing.”

“I hear you, Dongwan, but let me know what’s happening first,” Hyesung sounded annoyed, but Dongwan was willing to bet he hadn’t quite reached his own level.

“If you want to know, come over here and get your boyfriend,” Dongwan hissed, ending the call. The only thing that annoyed him more than being annoyed was talking to someone more annoyed than him. The coffee was dripping steadily, and he poured a cup before it finished, not bothering to sweeten it before walking back into the living room. Eric was sitting upright again, still in his underwear, thankfully.

* * *

Crying seemed to have sobered Eric up a little bit—Dongwan noted that his eyes were genuinely red and puffy—and he accepted the coffee without a word, blowing on it and avoiding Dongwan’s gaze.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Dongwan asked again. Eric frowned over the edge of his cup, looking at a spot over Dongwan’s left shoulder.

“We had a fight and I told him it was over this time. He was the one in the wrong today, Wan-ah, so he should be the one to apologize. But I always give in first, so I thought I’d avoid him and give him a taste of his own medicine. This time I’m not going to let him treat me any way he wants to,” Eric said. He sounded completely juvenile, but Dongwan couldn’t help but feel slightly sorry for him. Going to a bar further away and changing his passcode was completely unnecessary when it came to Hyesung. Whether he was in the wrong or not, it wasn’t in his nature to wait in Eric’s apartment or go out to bars looking for him. It was made all the more pathetic because Dongwan knew that, in the opposite situation, Eric would have gone all over the city to find Hyesung and apologize.

“So what happened with Minwoo?” Dongwan asked, deciding not to mention any of those thoughts to Eric, who seemed to already be feeling pathetic enough.

“I think he got tired of hearing about it. He told me to call Hyesung if I wanted to get home,” Eric said, frowning at the coffee cup as if it were somehow responsible for Minwoo’s actions.

“That idiot,” Dongwan said, under his breath. Leave it to Minwoo to forget that Eric could likely remember the member who lived only a couple of miles from the bar he had been drinking in. Eric discarded his coffee cup and switched positions on the couch, leaning his head on Dongwan’s shoulder and squirming, trying to get the other man’s right arm around him. Maybe crying hadn’t sobered him up after all.

“Lucky I have Wannie,” he said, planting a very wet and coffee-laced kiss on Dongwan’s t-shirt clad shoulder. Dongwan halfheartedly tried to shrug Eric’s head away and failed miserably, letting Eric grab his hand and pull it up to pat his head.

“I think you’re turning into Minwoo,” Dongwan said, patting Eric in spite of himself. He was too pitiful and cute to be mad at for too long, anyway. Without knowing the details, it was hard to pick sides, and although Dongwan was usually inclined to agree with Hyesung when the two had fights, he couldn’t help but feel at least a little sorry for Eric in this situation. Eric, who surely knew that Hyesung would never show up to beg for forgiveness, but who had changed his passcode and run away anyway, to create the illusion that he might.

* * *

The doorbell rang shortly after Eric fell asleep, and Dongwan had to wrench his hand from Eric’s to escape from the couch and answer it. The clock near the door said it was already past 6 AM—he had completely missed out on another night’s sleep, and the precious day off was either going to have to be spent sleeping or getting work done—there was no way to fit in both. He looked at the screen next to the buzzer, even though he already knew it would be Hyesung standing outside the door. He had seemed so angry on the phone, he probably wanted to come over and yell in person. Dongwan buzzed him in, then hurried to meet him in the hallway.

“Where is he?” Hyesung asked, voice much too loud for so early in the morning.

“Could you keep it down? He’s on the couch. I have neighbors, you know,” Dongwan said, frowning. Figuring Eric had already suffered enough, he had already transferred most of his own frustration to Hyesung.

“Neighbors my ass,” Hyesung said, pushing past Dongwan on his way to the living room. After confirming that Eric was, indeed, sleeping peacefully on the couch, Hyesung walked into the kitchen, motioning to Dongwan to follow him.

“Why are you two so comfortable in someone else’s house?” Dongwan wondered aloud. He had been invited to sit on his own couch, then invited to enter his own kitchen, all in one night. Hyesung turned around as soon as the door had closed behind him, looking livid.

“Did you take him out drinking tonight? What the Hell were you thinking?”

“Why are you angry at me? I should be angry at you! Eric called me at 3 AM to come pick him up from a bar he went to so you wouldn’t know where he was. And you don’t even have the decency to call around and look for him, but you come over here yelling at me like I kidnapped him,” Dongwan said, voice raised more than was necessary for someone who was ostensibly worried about the neighbors overhearing.

Hyesung looked at Dongwan for a moment, as if genuinely considering hitting him, only to, instead, sink into one of the chairs at the table, put his face in his hands, and burst into tears. Dongwan wouldn’t have been that surprised if Hyesung had slapped him, or even strangled him, but crying was unexpected. And if Hyesung crying was unexpected, and Eric crying was unexpected, the two of them crying on the same night in front of the same person was a sign of the apocalypse.

“I’ve been so worried,” Hyesung said after a couple of minutes, voice shaking. “I had my manager waiting outside to see when he got home, but he never showed up. And the waiters at his usual place said he hadn’t been there. I thought something might have happened to him, or he might be so mad at me he’d do something stupid.”

Dongwan continued to stand next to his table, dumbfounded, unable to think of any of the questions he had planned on asking, or do any of the scolding he had been prepared to do as Hyesung tried to force himself to stop crying.

“You know, if it had been Eric, he would have been waiting at your apartment, calling every hospital in Seoul by now,” Dongwan said, finally.

“Don’t you think I know that?” Hyesung asked, lifting his head and frowning. The tears had slowed at the sudden annoyance, but still hadn’t completely stopped. “Aish, seriously,” he said, wiping them away impatiently before turning his attention back to Dongwan. “Of course he would have, but it’s not that easy for me to be like him.”

“Minwoo took him out drinking somewhere near here,” Dongwan said, hoping that changing the subject a bit would avoid any more tears. He was starting to feel a little dizzy from all of his own mood changes, and the shock of a Ricsyung tearfest wasn’t helping at all. “Apparently Minwoo told him to call you and make up, but he called me to pick him up instead,” he explained. “He was perfectly safe all night, so try not to worry anymore. Minwoo and I go to that place all the time, and it’s all right. No one seemed to have recognized him outside or anything.”

Hyesung sighed and put his face back in his hands, but his shoulders had stopped shaking.

* * *

“Eric? Eric-ah,” Hyesung said, shaking his boyfriend’s shoulder with one hand and holding onto his jeans with the other. Eric opened one eye and tried to focus enough to figure out what was going on. It seemed like he was hallucinating a puffy-eyed Hyesung. “Eric, put on your clothes. Let’s go home so Dongwan can get some sleep,” Hyesung continued, taking one of Eric’s ankles in his hand and trying to shove it as gently as possible into the jeans.

Eric opened his other eye, nearly convinced that Hyesung was actually there, and smiled at the thought, all of his anger from the previous day quickly dissipating.

Dongwan, impatient again, despite feeling at least a little sorry for both parties, couldn’t take it anymore and dug his knee into Eric’s shoulder. “Would you hurry and get up? You two can make up in the car. It’s my day off.”

“Hyesung-ie, you found meeee.”

“Ya, put your clothes on so we can get out of here.”


End file.
